Reviews

The new Limited Edition Junior Fruit Cremes are new twist on the classic Junior Mints, which are the classic panned chocolates with a creamy mint fondant center. With this new variant has a fruit flavored fondant center with a white mockolate coating. Sounds tasty already, eh? The brightly colored box is very playful and I find the green background very eye-catching. As with all my candy discoveries, I peek at the ingredients list which I immediately find disappointing since trans fats are the second thing listed. Ah well, it’s not like candy is supposed to be good for you.

The pieces look like Junior Mints: little rounded plops, similar to smooth river stones. They have that bit of puckering on the bottom, which is their candy belly button. The Fruit Cremes come in four colors: orange, purple, dark pink and light pink with no indication of the flavors. They don’t look pretty at all: they have a little gloss to them but they still look flat and sort of gray. The colors are muted and aren’t very bright and inviting. There’s also no aroma to them at all.

Purple: Tastes like the purple Sweet Tart: a berry flavor with hints of grape in it. *Very* sweet.

Dark Pink: This just tastes sweet, I get no flavor at all. This really makes my throat burn.

Light Pink: Hard to say what this tastes like since this is also obnoxiously sweet. There’s a light berry flavor, maybe? If I *had* to choose, I’d say it’s a hint of strawberry.

The texture of these is odd. They are very cool and smooth in the mouth, with a creamy feeling that isn’t greasy. The shell is soft and immediately opens to the creamy interior, which is smooth and brightly flavored.

I couldn’t finish the recommended serving of these since I they were burning out my esophagus with the sugar hit. I am not kidding, my throat just *burns* for all the sugar in this. I was coughing for a good 20 minutes after eating seven of these and even a glass of water didn’t help. Mind you, this has never happened to me before because I have a pretty high sugar threshold. I liked the taste from what I got out of the two that did have flavor, but overall they’re disappointing. I don’t want candy that I can’t taste half of and have to chase with three glasses of water. I’ll pass.

I loved these as a kid. They were one of the most colorful offerings in the bins at the grocery store my Mom would shop at, so naturally I was attracted to them right away. I’d chose them as my treat on occasions when I wanted something hefty and chewy that delivered a good flavor punch. I also would reach for these when I wanted chocolate but wasn’t allowed it. Something about these just satisfied the craving so I didn’t end up making myself crazy.

The Royals, or Milk Maids as they’re called in some areas, are really just little logs of sweet caramel with a flavored creme filling. Colorfully coded by type, you can easily tell at the store which flavors the masses prefer. When I bought mine the bin was woefully lacking in the blue Vanilla variety. Oddly enough, you can also guess as to the manufacturer’s favorite (or least favorite, I should say) because when I found my grab bag of these, not a single Maple flavored one was in the mix. I found that mildly annoying.

Chocolate (brown): I mainly taste the caramel in this one, it’s sweet with a few milky notes thrown in. The chocolate creme center only delivers a mild cocoa flavor and left me craving a bigger chocolate hit. Overall it reminds me a little of a tootsie roll with a softer texture.

Raspberry (dark pink): The rasberry flavor is very light and floral with a juicy kick to it. It’s not as strong as I hoped but it does work nicely with the caramel coating.

Vanilla (blue): The vanilla filling gives a great robust flavor and an extra milky punch to the whole caramel. It’s really lovely.

Orange (orange): This one is really cool because the combination of the sweet milky notes of the caramel with the orange center makes it taste of a creamsicle.

Butter Rum (yellow): The strong butter flavor tastes artificial to me. However, the slight “burning” flavor of the rum goes seamlessly with the caramel which I find really nice.

Maple (red): The one I was looking forward to the most! The maple flavor is detectable, but it’s more of a fake pancake syrup flavor as opposed to the real thing. It adds a nice woodsy and brown sugar flavor which really compliments the caramel.

I can see why I haven’t really visited these since my childhood. The flavors are mediocre and when you’re a kid eager to get a sugar hit, theses deliver enough flavor to satisfy the taste buds too. I find as an adult, I crave something more sophisticated than what these have to offer. I think my Mom summed it up perfectly when she saw my bag of Royals in my shopping bag: “Oh, I love those, but I haven’t had them in years!”. Some candies are best in memory.

It seems fitting that for my inaugural post that I’d review a candy that is very dear to me: the Zero bar. As a candy enthusiast, the Zero bar epitomizes the idea of why we all love candy. Usually our preferences are based on what tastes good to us, by what memories we associate with it, what company makes it, etc. Sometimes though, we get a candy like the Zero bar that’s a favorite, well, just because. The love exists without logic.

The Zero bar, which is made up of almond nougat, peanuts, caramel and enrobed in white fudge; was originally made by Hollywood Brands candy company back in 1920. Zero’s name comes from the white covering along with its tendency to be eaten frozen (at “zero” degrees). Over the years it has jumped from company to company and in 1996 it became a member of the Hershey candy lineup. It still remains, as far as I know, the only candy bar to be covered in white chocolate.

I find it odd that despite my love for this candy bar, I cannot recall specifically how I discovered it or when I first tasted it. I only have a general sense of when it appeared in my life and how: I believe it was during middle school when my Mom brought it back to me from a shopping trip. She thought I’d like to try it simply because it was white chocolate. Sometimes the simplest of actions have very large impacts.

The bar once unwrapped is a beautiful pristine white. It smells sweet with a light, nutty, almond touch. Breaking it in half, the caramel ribbon makes a wonderful gooey thread: it’s not too thick nor too flowing. Perfect. The almond nougat is a nice chocolately brown color and you could easily mistake it as such if it wasn’t for the nutty almond smell.

The first bite is lovely: the chocolate feels smooth and cool, the caramel sweet and the nougat fluffy with a nice graininess as it melts in your mouth. The flavor is very sweet, but the nutty almond flavor of the nougat and the peanuts help cut it a little. Surprisingly, the nougat tastes more of real almonds and not amaretto, complimented with a slight touch of malt, that stands out as the main flavor of Zero. The sweet caramel and white chocolate coating providing a light base for the flavors of the nougat to build upon. The pieces of peanuts are small and not heavily distributed (thank goodness!) provide an extra nutty kick as well as a crunchy textural element. The balance of delicate and simple flavors with a good mix of textures of this bar makes it a total winner in my book. So tasty.

So there you have it, the candy bar for which I feel unconditional love for. Some will disagree with my opinion, but that’s what makes loving a certain candy so special: only you truly know how to appreciate it to the fullest.